7.2 Discourses Identified in Relation to Objective One
7.2.4 Feminist Discourse
7.2.4.3 The Power of Challenging Patriarchy
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gardener our domestic servant was one of our good friends…and actually as children all the local kids, the black kids, were our friends, and that’s who we spent time with..
And we played with them and that. Only when we started getting older and we went off to schools, and that kind of thing, did we start to realize… hang on...there are no black people in our schools and that kind of thing. But as kids we were just oblivious to the thing and it was...there is a servant’s quarters down there and that’s where our servant stayed, and we were up here, and she would have dinner with us if my folks were away or whatever… but that’s just how we… and I must admit, I don’t even think, maybe it was naivety, I don’t even think that I got to probably Senior High School ,not High School, Junior School, that I got to even comprehending any of this. Umm…And it is quite interesting, because you lived in your own world as children.
In the first text, the white participant positions her narrative within the context of growing up in South Africa under apartheid and contrasts her lack of awareness of the associated power relations between black and white and a growing consciousness of segregation. This discourse is introduced early on in the interview in reference to her own story. The way in which she shifts the discussion from her family context to a broader social context begins with a hesitant and unrelated acknowledgement of “and quite honestly I didn’t you know we had apartheid and all those kind of things” and locates apartheid in a vague and poorly understood context re-enforced by the repeated use of the phrase “and that kind of thing”. In her discussion of her relations with both the domestic worker and the black children in the area, there is a certain incredulity associated with the words “and actually” with it being further enhanced by the emphasis on friends in the statement “as children, the local kids, the black kids were our friends”, both recognising and re-enforcing the abnormality of this within the apartheid context. The growing awareness of the lack of understanding of these issues is presented as an admission with the hedge “..I must admit..I don’t even think…maybe it was naivety..I don’t even think that I got to probably senior high school not junior or high school that I got to comprehending any of this”. However, the reflective nature of the comment “it’s quite interesting because you live in your own world as children”
justifies the poorly understood context and exonerates her of responsibility. The phrasing shifts from introducing the relationship between a ‘white child’ and the politically sensitive term ‘domestic worker’ into the use of ‘domestic servant’ which draws from the colonial rhetoric of power relations between black and white. This shift
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in terminology and the fact that the discourse is introduced so early on in the narrative has the effect of presenting her story within the context of an interview on leadership and power where political sensitivity would be expected. However, despite her observed awareness of segregation, her reversion to the colonial terminology of her childhood has the effect of preserving the past power relations of the apartheid era. This discourse is developed further in extract two.
Extract Two (Interview 1)
So it was quite.. sitting here thinking about it, it was quite an interesting.. environment that we grew up in because we came from a very racist…not my family…. you know, environment there to then go to a school that was different …okay, it didn’t have black people, it was Afrikaans and had boys .. but we still had to be open-minded about people. So you know it was quite an interesting thing , and you just did it, you just got on with it. So and I think that, being culturally conscious, stood me in good stead throughout my career. I think the ability to listen and, not.. necessarily be intimidated by other people’s opinions or whatever, but to be able to listen to them and say yes you are right or you are wrong. Because I am not this outspoken person has also stood me in good stead, because I accept that there are a lot of people out there that know a lot more than I do, and I’m willing to listen, and I’ll debate. .But because of that, just the kind of person I am, it just allowed me to not always be in the front of the class, and always leading the whole thing, but to be able to sit back and listen to other people’s points of view and then to make a decision. And I think that has stood me in extremely good stead for where I am now in company y….
The use of the phrase “you know” in this extract attempts to create a universalism linked to the racist, colonial environment of her childhood, anticipating that it is commonly understood by the interviewer as a fellow white woman who grew up in a similar context. There is a definite attempt to distance herself from this racism through making it a universal or denying its existence in her own family in the statement “I came from a very racist…not my family….you know environment”. The narration of the development of her cultural awareness is located within her experience of difference in her school context, related to language and gender. She draws from the universal acceptance of diversity, commonly acknowledged within leadership contexts today in South Africa (Dormehl 2012; Horwitz & Jain 2011; Human 2005; Rijamampianina &
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Carmichael 2005; Thomas 2002; Thomas & Ely 1996). But while this cultural consciousness is framed in the context of being “open minded about people” and being able to “listen” to others, she presents a contradiction in her line of argument in the narration when she says “to listen and not…necessarily be intimidated by other people’s opinions”. The contradictions in the narration related to race and culture presents the binary opposites of being dominant and being dominated as well as being open-minded and accepting of others as opposed to the close minded paradigm personified as a
“racist”. The emphasis on how this “cultural consciousness” has stood her in good stead in her career and her ability to listen has aided her in her present position, suggests that this is the identity she constructs within the context of her leadership role.
The following discussion in response to the question on the negative impact somebody has had on her story contributes further to this discourse:
Extract Three (Interview 1)
…...something happened when I was at company y ..that again I think..if we are talking about people..there was an anonymous letter written to the MD of company y..I was wondering if this would come up..when I was there as a senior manager..and it accused me and another manager of a whole lot of things..one of them being..racist..and this MD took the letter and copied it to the whole of the company board in Joburg and the executive…and I can tell you right now of everything in my story..that was probably the most traumatic moment..uuum..at that stage I had about a year to go until partner assessment..and I just saw my career go up in flames before me…uuum..everyone who made a decision as to whether I would be made a partner had a copy of that letter..
and..uum.. it’s not as if I could take it back or get it retracted…I had to in that scenario.. my mentor was so angry that he couldn’t take him on..and so another partner said right let’s take him on…and..and..i remember just crying for days..it was the most traumatic thing..and just having to deal with the whole thing..ask him why he did it and him turn around and say I thought it was the right thing to do..and I had to say to him..you didn’t even bother to investigate it…and find out what..what the story was and you just decided to copy the whole world on this thing and I said..you’ve just absolutely destroyed my career…uum..it was very traumatic and I honestly thought that that was my day at company y…and.. in my mind I still think I know what triggered it..it’s my rationalizing to myself..and what it’s taught me is that perceptions are incredibly
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powerful..it might be wrong but if people perceive you as something..they can destroy you and…I learnt a valuable lesson about perceptions..
This account of one of the ‘lowest’ points in her career as being publicly accused of being a ‘racist’ is in response to the question about who had had a negative impact on her life story. The MD, who made the incident public emerges as the villain in the story as opposed to the person accusing her of racism. She acknowledges the perception of racism, not to be true, but as a perception that she can possibly understand rationally
“..and in my mind..I still think I know what triggered it..it’s my rationalising to myself..” However, the key focus in this account is the damaging effect this public perception would have on her career through the vivid images of destruction “I saw my career go up in flames” and “perceptions are incredibly powerful…it might be wrong but if people perceive you as something they can destroy you.” The account and the lesson learnt, as she describes it, positions her culturally conscious leadership identity as a ‘learned’ behaviour in adulthood, perceived to be necessary for progressing through and sustaining power within an organisation, particularly within the current context in South Africa. The context of the interview being on women leaders in South Africa also seems to create a framing of the narrative in terms of ‘learnt’ leadership developmental processes. This is suggested in her unprompted contextualising of her upbringing at the start of the interview and in her pre-empting comment around the discussion of this incident “I was wondering if this would come up.”
The overall effect of this discourse is to acknowledge the need to be ‘culturally aware’
within the leadership context of South Africa and how that awareness is developed with hindsight from an adult perspective and within the current context of a changed political system. There is not necessarily an awareness of or shift in power relations within the racial and cultural context, however. A contrary effect of the discourse is to re-assert dominance within the shifting power dynamics in South Africa. The narration indicates strategies to avoid being dominated by others and to skilfully manage perceptions around being labelled a ‘racist’. The deployment of discourses to this effect has significant implications for authentic transformation efforts within organisations.
Whilst in the first interview, the white participant immediately positioned her narrative within the context of growing up under apartheid and being part of a dominant race
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group. In the following interview, the African participant does not position her narrative within this context upfront. She does so in response to the reason she went to school at an early age.
Extract One (Interview 5)
My sister was 7 years older than me so she was already going to school, and also..I have to thank apartheid in that sense, because in a white school I would never have been allowed to go to school, but in our black schools, there were not many strict rules and..you know, because our education was so poor, and everyone thought you just come to school for fun. You either going to be a nurse or a teacher one day…so there were not many hard and fast rules. And also too, we couldn’t afford a maid, at home, and my mother was pregnant with my brother and had to work.. still, and so either I was going to be left alone, or go and live with my grandma. But already, because my sister was 7 years older, I was already reading her books, and developed a very strong sense of self, and they thought to give it a bash and take me to school.
Access to formal education at an early age forms part of the discourse of intellectual superiority and creation of identity throughout this participant’s narrative, which is dealt with in the section on expert and intellectual power (7.2.2.1) of this chapter, and the racial discourse is secondary in the interview. The way in which she contrasts the “hard and fast rules” of “white” schools and the poor education where people went to school for “fun” in “black” schools constructs a social context which gave her freedom which she was able to take advantage of. In so doing her discourse relates to the ability to manipulate a seemingly disempowering system when she says “and also…I have to thank apartheid in that sense”. The hesitation and hedge phrase “in a sense” recognise the irony of the statement, however, this adult reflection on her narrative constructs her developing awareness of power as the ability to work a system to her advantage.
Furthermore, the discourse around race and culture in this interview focuses on the challenge of being ‘black’ in a predominantly ‘white’ environment and the need to prove legitimacy of belonging. As in the first interview, the awareness of the effects of segregation is only apparent later in the participant’s narrative due to the isolated nature of the black and white childhood experiences lived under apartheid.
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University was quite a tough environment for me because I came from a black background, never… then apartheid ended in 1994, suddenly you know there were a lot of opportunities. But having gone to a black school in a black..you know..now we had no computers, nothing, suddenly I am exposed to…and I went to a white university, University of Natal, you know..most of my peers went to University of Zululand, Fort Hare, and stuff…and I went to Natal University, again because my parents thought I could fit there and also because I had the Anglo-American Scholarship, because obviously it was much more expensive than the other universities. And what helped there was again being thrown in the deep end.
The polarised terms of ‘black’ background and ‘black’ versus ‘white’ universities are part of the social construct of the racial experiences of growing up in South Africa. The way in which the participant co-opts the interviewer by saying “you know” several times in the text, despite the interviewer being of a different race, refers to a commonly understood history which was polarised. In addition to taking advantage of the system, in this extract the discourse clearly relates to survival within a foreign context as something that contributed to the development of power when she says, “and what helped there was again being thrown in the deep end”.
Proving her worth and legitimacy in accessing scholarships and an accounting career which was typically viewed as the domain of white males, is constructed throughout the interview with metaphors relating to the “survival of the fittest”. Survival is associated with achievement and being taken seriously when not being part of the dominant culture or race. She presents this through the human subject of the Afrikaans men that she worked with in the following extract.
Extract Three (Interview 5)
And suddenly umm…I felt you know.. and we had then monthly management meetings..and management they didn’t give you eye contact and I had been exposed to Canada, white communities where, when you speak to someone you look straight in their eyes, and here Afrikaans men in the boardroom would sit and discuss things about the mine and when I talk no one looked at me, and someone said what I had said, and
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suddenly they were heard, and the idea freewheeled. And that was my idea, that was my suggestion!
Contrasting the binary opposites of Afrikaans communities where she felt ignored and unacknowledged and white communities in Canada where she felt like an equal, constructs her narration of power as one which is constantly asserting itself within a social context which aims to suppress it. This legitimate claim to power forms part of the feminist discourse which is predominant across all of the interviews as well as in the literature (Clark and Kleyn 2007; Ely et al. 2011; Freeman et al. 2001; Ibarra &
Obodaru 2009; Rhode 2003; Sandberg 2013; Valerio 2009) and will be discussed later in this chapter. However, in the African participant’s discourse, the two are inextricably linked, to the extent that it is difficult for the participants in some cases to distinguish between racial and gender discrimination. This reflects the tensions that exist within the feminist discourse around race and gender which is highlighted in the literature review (Hassim 2005; Mtintso 2003).
In the tenth interview, the narration of her development of power, presents the racial and the feminist discourse alongside one another. When asked the question how her story has been shaped by being a woman, she responds:
Extract One (Interview 10)
Umm..honestly…. I don’t know, I don’t know..Let me tell you why I say this. I am very much aware of the fact that I am a beneficiary of affirmative action, be it because I am black, or because I am a woman..doesn’t really matter. I benefitted from companies in the early nineties knowing that they actually needed to transform their workforce and that they needed to give others an opportunity. I also am aware that throughout I’ve met people that treated me differently or in a vile manner because I was either black or a woman. But fortunately those people were not decision makers in terms of how my career was going to grow. So..I have been sheltered from it to a certain extent because the people who were my mentors or bosses at the time understood the context within which I was operating and they did what they could to ensure that the environment was conducive…
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She recognises that her story has been shaped both by being ‘black’ and a woman. Yet in her text, she repeats “I don’t know, I don’t know” which has the effect of being unable to isolate either. Her response is constructed around being a beneficiary of affirmative action and being a subject of discrimination. While these are polar opposites, disempowerment is associated with both. However, she recounts her career achievement as having been facilitated by others who helped create the right environment for her. The effect of this text is to locate her narrative outside of herself and to position herself either as a beneficiary of good or bad treatment or policies that enabled her to be there. In doing so, the discourse constructs the narrator as a victim within a system and while challenging her legitimate claim to power, re-asserts white, male dominance. This is confirmed in the literature discussion on the negative effects of a “discrimination and fairness paradigm” (Thomas & Ely 1996) as the only driver of affirmative action policies (Byrne 2009; Horwitz & Jain 2011). This is further supported in the fact that she recounts her current relationship with her male boss as highly disempowering.
Extract Three (Interview 10)
I don’t know if it is just my personality as well.. you know I am not quite sure what it is about me that brings out his this very worst, worst side in him, which is always there, but when it comes to me it’s just there is something about him that it really really grates him. I’d like to think that he is a lot more evolved than just being a racist misogynist pig (laughter). So I am going to assume that it is something to do with my personality.
That I just happen to be the person that brings out the worst in him. So I don’t know if that answers your question? And I know that it is probably not the right answer..
The effect of this text is to deny the hurt and experience of racism that she does not want to label. She does this by using the hedge phrase “I’d like to think that he is a lot more evolved…” but in fact naming him a “racist misogynist pig”. This has the effect of articulating her experience of his behaviour while seemingly retaining the moral high ground of refusing to label him categorically. The laughter which follows, however, has the effect of emphasising the irony expressed in the text and the duplicitous talk as a survival strategy in maintaining facades in a hostile environment. There is bravado associated in the way she states “I assume…” and yet this is contrasted with the self- doubt around “I don’t know if that answers your question? And I know that is probably